2010 Chess Olympiad: Mamedyarov beats Ivanchuk; Ukraine prevails

9/30/2010 – The Azerbaijani team had climbed back into contention after their surprise loss to Vietnam, and now faced Ukraine, the leaders. Mamedyarov outplayed Ivanchuk in a Benoni with some briliant shots, but Ukraine's bottom boards rallied. Russia 1 beat Armenia thanks to Svidler, and France beat Georgia to tie for second. As to the women, the Russians nearly lost. Round nine report.

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2010 Chess Olympiad Khanty-Mansiysk

Round 9

The playing hall with the display boards for the public.

The ninth round brought several surprises and could have cost the leaders of both the men’s and women’s sections. The foremost was the match between Ukraine and Azerbaijan, the latter who had spent a good deal of the tournament playing catch-up after their surprise loss to Vietnam. The highest profile match was between Ivanchuk, who had thus far played irreproachably, and Mamedyarov, a very imaginative player whose only fault lies in his occasional impatience to make things happen. Ivanchuk played a provocative Benoni with black, and Mamedyarov seemed ready for it as he played a strong novelty.

The Azerbaijani team (Mamedyarov, Mamedov, and Radjabov) in good spirits before
their match.

1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nf3 c5 4.d5 d6 5.Nc3 exd5 6.cxd5 g6 7.Nd2 Bg7 8.e4 0-0 9.Be2 Na6 10.0-0 Re8 11.f3 Nc7 Ivanchuk`s ability to not only play any opening, but any type of position due to his sheer versatility makes it almost impossible to really prepare against him. Vassily's choice of the Benoni shows that he is willing to take chances in this game and it is quite fitting that the first game with this line as black was played by Tal. 12.a4 Nd7 13.Kh1 b6 14.Ra3 Qe7 15.a5 Previously 15.Nb5 had been played in Kramnik-Topalov (2001) and 15.Nc4 in Eljanov-Oleksienko (2004). 15...Bb7 16.Nb5 Nf6?! Better was 16...Nxb5 17.Bxb5 Red8 18.Re1 17.Nxc7 Qxc7 18.Bb5 Reb8 19.Nc4 There is no question it is far easier to find good squares for the white pieces than for black, which says a lot about the position. 19...bxa5 20.Bf4 Bf8.

This precipitous win might easily have changed the course of the men’s section had Ukraine lost the match as a result as well. However, Ivanchuk’s teammates rallied with verve, and Eljanov, came back from his loss to Karjakin in the previous round, to soundly beat Mamedov, while fourth board Efimenko also came through by beating Safarli, to win the match by 2.5-1.5 and keep the sole lead. Russia 1 stayed in the race by also winning a key match against Armenia also by 2.5-1.5, with Svidler winning his game against Sargissian. France is also firmly in contention, as the followed up their impressive win over Russia 2 with a win over Georgia, after Sebastien Feller, who had had a slow start, has won crucial games for his team.

Georgia facing France, with Jobava against Vachier-Lagrave on board one.

Both Russia 1 and France are tied for second/third a half a match point behind Ukraine. Behind them are Israel, China, and the US, who all won tough matches. The US overcame Bulgaria thanks to Gata Kamsky who surprised Ivan Cheparinov with a very interesting novelty in a Najdorf.

1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 a6 6.Be3 e5 7.Nf3 Qc7 8.a4 h6 9.Be2 Be6 10.0-0 Be7 11.a5 Qc6 12.Ne1!?N A fascinating novelty by Kamsky. Previously white had defended the e4 pawn with either Nd2 or Qd3. 12...Nxe4 13.Nxe4 Qxe4 14.Bf3 Qb4 15.c4!? A very interesting move with both tactical and positional justification. The positional idea is to prevent black from regrouping the queen via Qb5-d7. 15...Nd7 If 15...Bxc4 16.Ra4 Qb5 17.Rxc4 Qxc4 18.Bxb7 winning the rook. 16.b3 Black's queen may not be condemend, however, with it trapped in white's side of the board with so many pieces, his position is unenviable. 16...Rb8 17.Nd3 Qc3

The women’s section could easily have been one of the greatest surprises of the event. Russia 1 had been on a perfect 100%, and had already played and beaten every one of the top-rated opponents. With a 1.5 match point lead over their nearest competitors, one would think it was smooth sailing from now on, yet the ninth round against 17th ranked Serbia came incredibly close to putting the gold back for grabs.

Russia 1 against Serbia, who came tantalizingly close to doing the unthinkable.

While top-rated Tatiana Kosintseva drew against Natasa Bojkovic, and Valentina Gunina beat Jovana Eric, Kosteniuk stumbled against Stojanovic leaving the match drawn, to be decided by the game between Nadezhda Kosintseva (2565) and Irina Chelushkina (2325). The thing is that the Serb played virtually flawless chess for the first 30 moves and had an absolutely crushing position with mate threats left and right. She then had a string of mistakes, including leaving herself open to a mate missed by Kosintseva, and even though she went into the endgame with solid winning chances, Irina completely lost her focus and ended up actually losing the game, and thus the match. One strongly suspects that not a lot of sleep will be had after that. With it, the gold is pretty much decided for Russia 1, who lead by two full wins, while silver and bronze are strongly contested foremost by China, Bulgaria, India, Georgia, and Ukraine, followed by a further four teams just behind.

The tenth round will see Ukraine, with their experienced world-class lineup, playing against late-surging France, and their revitalized young team, followed by Russia 1 against China, and the United States against Israel.

Watching the games

It goes without saying that the options to watch the games live are wide and varied. You can watch them at no cost on Playchess, enjoying the software's new options to display multiple boards at the same time, and if you are a Premium member, live grandmaster commentary will be provided on Playchess for every round by GM Daniel King, author of the best-selling Power Play series, and GM Yasser Seirawan. If you miss the live games, you can always watch the commentary after the fact, or get an abridged tale via the Daily Roundup show also hosted on Playchess at 6 PM UTC (2 PM New York). Again, if you miss the show, it remains available on the server at your disposal.

Video reports

We received video reports by both Elmira Mirzoeva and Europe Echecs which we are sharing with their kind permission.

The round nine report includes a presentation of traditional costume items from the region.

The ninth round report includes numerous impressions by players, such as American GM Nakamura,
Chinese Wang Yue, Chinese prodigy Hou Yifan, as well as French coach GM Arnaud Hauchard.

Links

The games are being broadcast live on the official web site and on the chess server Playchess.com. If you are not a member you can download the free PGN reader ChessBase Light, which gives you immediate access. You can also use the program to read, replay and analyse PGN games. New and enhanced: CB Light 2009!

Albert SilverBorn in the US, he grew up in Paris, France, where he completed his Baccalaureat, and after college moved to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. He had a peak rating of 2240 FIDE, and was a key designer of Chess Assistant 6. In 2010 he joined the ChessBase family as an editor and writer at ChessBase News. He is also a passionate photographer with work appearing in numerous publications.

See also

12/30/2017 – The "King Salman World Blitz & Rapid Championships 2017" in Riyadh from Decemer 26th to 30th. At the half way point of the Blitz Championship, the defending champ Sergey Karjakin leads with 9 / 11. Maxime Vachier-Lagrave is a half point back followed by Peter Svidler and a trio of Chinese: Wang, Ding and Yu on 8 / 11. In the Women's Pia Cramling has a full point lead with 9½ / 11. Watch live with Rounds 11 to 22 from 12:00 Noon CET (6:00 AM EST) on Saturday with commentary by E. Miroshnichenko & WGM K. Tsatsalashvili.

See also

12/6/2017 – Imagine this: you tell a computer system how the pieces move — nothing more. Then you tell it to learn to play the game. And a day later — yes, just 24 hours — it has figured it out to the level that beats the strongest programs in the world convincingly! DeepMind, the company that recently created the strongest Go program in the world, turned its attention to chess, and came up with this spectacular result.

Video

The introductory position of the Kasparov Gambit can occur after 1 d4,1 Nf3 and 1 c4, which can appeal to a wide range of players. The usual move order is 1 d4 Nf6 2 c4 c5 3 Nf3 cxd4 4 Nxd4 e5!? 5 Nb5 d5 6 cxd5 Bc5 bringing us to a very sharp position. On this 60 mins, FIDE Senior Trainer Andrew Martin argues the case from the Black side, showing both classic Kasparov masterpieces and games from the present day and suggests that White's defensive task is not easy. This is a practical gambit which will help players at all levels to win more games. It is ideal for must-win situations with Black. It is a gambit that White cannot decline,as if he does, Black gets a good position instantly. White must take up the cudgels and fight!